2.3 Lobatae section
This study included 4 species in Lobatae section which is only
found in the New World (Table 2). Average length of equatorial axis and
polar axis of pollen (27.72 μm and 30.1 μm) in this section is between Quercus and Protobalanus but closer to the average length
in Quercus section than that in Protobalanus section.
Pollen shapes tend to be spheroidal. Surface ornamentations of Lobatae pollen include scabrate and scabrate-verrucate, both
dense and sparse. Moran’s test shows that there is phylogenetic signal
in distance between pores between each taxa (Table 8)
The sizes of Quercus Xalvordiana , Q. macdonaldii , Chrysolepis chrysophylla , and Notholithocarpus densiflorusvar. echinoides are between Protobalanus and other 2
sections. In addition, variation of sizes of Lobatae oak pollen
is larger than that of Protobalanus even though two sections
include the similar number of species. p /D ratios between three
sections did not show significant difference.
Table 3 Light microscope measurements in three Quercus sections. size (lengths of equatorial axis and polar axis), shape (P/E ratio), and furrow distance (p/D ratio)